This year’s America’s Promise report on high school graduation rates has just been released, and according to the description on p. 23, the non-profit is using the Adjusted Freshman Graduation Rate, which has a moderate relationship at best to the new federal adjusted-cohort rate, at least using Florida data. A little better is the Johns Hopkins “promoting power” (or basic completion rate) from 9th grade on, but it’s not too much better.
Unfortunately, with graduation rates it looks like the only way to measure them accurately by cohort is to… measure them accurately by cohort. The report suggests all states will be using the new federal rate by next spring (2013). I hope so.
I don’t need to tell you this, but you need to tell THEM that they need to insist on overlapping both measures in tables and graphs for at least 4 years after the change is implemented nationally.
Trends make no sense when you change the measured quantity by factors that might vary significantly from state to state.